'Sex and the City' gals talk about sequel

Tuesday

May 25, 2010 at 12:01 AMMay 25, 2010 at 10:59 AM

There was little doubt that a “Sex and the City” film would be made, given that the TV show had such huge audience appeal. There was zero doubt that there would be a sequel, once the film brought in more than $400 million at the box office. Like the film and the series before it, “Sex and the City 2” is made up of time spent with four New York gal pals. The formula is simple: Give each of them issues, then have those issues be solved.

Ed Symkus

There was little doubt that a “Sex and the City” film would be made, given that the TV show had such huge audience appeal. There was zero doubt that there would be a sequel, once the film brought in more than $400 million at the box office. Like the film and the series before it, “Sex and the City 2” is made up of time spent with four New York gal pals. The formula is simple: Give each of them issues, then have those issues be solved.

At a recent get-together in – where else? – the shoe department at Bergdorf Goodman, Sarah Jessica Parker (Carrie), Kristen Davis (Charlotte), Cynthia Nixon (Miranda), and Kim Cattrall (Samantha) chatted about what their characters go through in the sequel, which takes place two years after the first movie ended.

“There was a wedding and now there has to be a marriage,” said Parker of Carrie, who is married to Chris Noth’s Mr. Big. “The two are very different, and I think where Carrie finds herself at the top of the movie is starting to ask questions about the environment in which she currently lives.”

The dilemma is that while Big has comfortably settled into a married existence of dining in and watching TV in bed, Carrie misses her old life and wishes there was still some of what she refers to as “sparkle.”

“The big theme of the movie is tradition,” said Parker. “Why do we run toward it and why do we push it away? Women are in the process of redefining our roles all the time; it’s the great gift that our mothers gave us – this opportunity to rethink the roles that we take on in very conventional institutions. We do it all the time.”

Nixon’s Miranda has become a very successful lawyer, but she has a male boss who both ignores and demeans her.

“Miranda’s real issue is what to do when you have a really terrific job, that you’re well paid for, that you’ve worked for decades to get there, and all of a sudden you’re miserable in it,” said Nixon.

She said that, looking through the eyes of the character, she could relate to the problem.

“As you get older and get more of a sense of yourself, you learn to value yourself, you learn to say, ‘You know what, I have to speak up for myself and protect myself. I may define myself as a lawyer, but if I’m a miserable lawyer, better not to be a lawyer at all.’”

By the end of the first film, Davis’ Charlotte has an adopted daughter and gives birth to another child. In the sequel, the second daughter is a screecher who has just reached the “terrible twos.” Charlotte, unable to cope, is quite miserable.

“Charlotte’s always been very traditional and has very high expectations of herself in those traditions,” said Davis. “Oftentimes, she doesn’t live up to them. Possibly some things she’s trying to control in life are not really things you can control. So she’s faced with her own kind of lack of the perfect picture that she’s trying to create.”

Then there’s the outspoken Samantha, played by the outspoken Cattrall. The sequel sees Samantha struggling with getting older and still trying to remain a self-proclaimed sex symbol.

Cattrall is blunt, and funny, about Samantha’s issue.

“Menopause,” she said. “And I didn’t need to do any research.”

Though all four characters are tackling an issue, “Sex and the City,” as fans know, centers on Carrie. Her story is always just a little bigger and glossier; her troubles run a bit deeper. She’s going through what she believes is a rough patch with Big, and when the plot sends the four women on a Middle East adventure, the Carrie-Big relationship gets even more complicated, thanks to a chance encounter with an old flame.

That trip, which gave the film some international flare (Morocco stands in for Abu Dhabi), led to Parker’s favorite part of the project: She actually got to live with her cast mates.

“We were removed, shooting out of the country, and we had this chance to live together and to know one another in a way we never had the opportunity to do when we were in New York,” she said. “In New York, we’d go home to our friends and family and children and animals. This just changed everything. I came away loving them more than I ever have, because I got to see them in a new way. I was so reliant upon them and they became evermore necessary. I was so challenged by the work they were doing and how good they were and what thoroughbreds they were, and how nothing could get us down, no matter how hungry we were, or how much we had to go to the bathroom, even if we were on hour 18 of day 58. It was so impressive and inspiring, and it felt very buoyant.”